Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Over at Vox is an article
by Matthew Yglesias whose title sounds like something I can agree
with: "Car Dealers Are Awful. It's Time to Kill the Dumb Laws That
Keep Them in Business." The article is worthwhile, but ends up making
a very common error -- the one, in fact, responsible for the very
existence of our meddling regulatory state:

What the FTC
doesn't have is an actual proposal. But while the federal
government can't directly step in and repeal state-level bans on
direct auto sales, it can take advantage of the large federal role
in transportation finance. A quarter
of all transportation funding flows from Washington through various
grant programs. Some of that money should be set aside in a "best
practices" pool and made available to states that allow for open entry
into the car-selling market, while states that refuse to reform will
lose out. [link in original, bold added]

The author, at
first blush, seems to be saying, "There are too many laws: There
oughtta be a law!" His diagnosis and solution are both wrong, and it
is interesting to consider what is wrong in light of his
reasoning.

Earlier, Yglesias notes that part of the problem is that,
"[C]itizens simply don't pay much attention to state politics, making
it even more of a plaything for special interest lobbies." Perhaps
"citizens" ought to take some responsibility for what an entity that
can point guns at people is doing, particularly since it is doing so
to their detriment, rather than protecting their individual
rights. This proposal honors a very bad precedent: That the solution
to bad laws and regulations is another layer of the same. Furthermore,
it is naive to assume, as Yglesias apparently does, that a government
big enough to bully one that is pushing everyone around will act
benevolently.

Even one law that violates individual rights is too many. The solution to the problem is to work towards the day when we can abolish all such laws, and there is no substitute for persuading people to take an interest in the issue and see that such a course is to their benefit.

2 comments:

That follows the precedent set by liquor in most (if not all) states. It is interesting to consider the role this remnant of Prohibition (and indeed Prohibition itself) had on getting Americans used to the regulatory state.